Healthy living Blog

Carer Diary

October 8, 2008: free to just be

Marianne Talbot and her mother

Marianne Talbot's mother's advanced Alzheimer's disease meant she had to move into a nursing home. But she is back to her old cheerful self, and Marianne can't help wondering if it's because she's now free to just be

To my astonishment I am really enjoying my visits to mum. She has returned to being so wonderfully herself. When I think back to four months ago...it is a whole new world!

It is interesting to speculate on this extraordinary change.

Is it that she has regained her freedom? When she was with me she was never allowed to just get up and go: someone would always be following her asking her where she was going, and offering to get for her whatever it was she wanted.

Now I think about it, it must have been irritating beyond belief.

But now she can go anywhere she likes. She can walk the long wide corridors and stare through the big picture windows into the courtyards. She can even go into the gardens if she likes because, during the day, the doors are never locked. The perimeter fence is secure and obscured by prickly bushes, so the residents can’t actually get out of the grounds. But within the grounds they can go wherever they like, when they like.

‘Yes’, said the director, when I asked, ‘they might fall over. But we think it is better to take that risk and give them their freedom, than that we are always restricting them.’ Well, I couldn’t agree more, if this is helping mum be so cheerful.

Or perhaps mum was unhappy because she was always being dragged from pillar to post? I had to work. So she had to go to daycare. This meant she had to be prised from her bed far earlier than suited her, washed, dressed, breakfasted and pushed through the door the minute the bus came. Then she was driven around for two hours collecting other people, then she spent a couple of hours at the day centre, before going through the whole process again in reverse. It makes me tired just thinking about it.

Now she can live life as it suits her, she can get up when she wants, go to bed when she wants, and do what she wants.

Finally, I suspect it must be a relief no longer to be constantly the focus of attention. With me she was usually with just one carer at a time. This meant that she was always supposed to be doing something, talking or drawing or whatever. Now she can just sit. And just sitting doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything to entertain her. In the home there is always so much going on that it is easy to occupy yourself without actually having to do anything; you can just watch the world go by. What a relief this must be.

But whatever the explanation mum’s spirits are soaring, and so are mine!

More from Marianne Talbot
Care homes
Saga and caring
Useful links for carers

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